Gabe- Single Light Portrait + Before/ after

[DanOstergren]

A portrait I took of one of my best friend's 13 year old son earlier this week.

It's unconventional, but I used a constant ring light with a diffusion sock, but rather than shooting through it I positioned it to achieve Rembrandt style lighting. One of the reasons I love constant lighting is because I can see the light exactly as it is while trying to capture the image.

I decided the painterly tones that the camera captured were good as they were, so I did very minor tone editing and focused mainly on cleaning up the skin a bit by dodging and burning / spot healing.

 

[BrentC]

Really nice Dan. I really appreciate appreciate you showing before and after and light placements. For someone who hasn't dipped his toe into portraits yet it is really helpful.

 

[Amocholes]

Excellent work! The color tone is wonderful. That boy is going to break a few hearts if he hasn't already.

 

[jcdeboever]

Very nice. I just ordered an impact octa 9 today and really looking forward to using it. Next on list is a ring light. One of my goals this year is to study, work, and improve on portraits.

 

[crimbfighter]

Somebody has modeling in their future! Really nice image. Do you think the ring light added anything different in regards to the lighting as opposed to using say a strobe and softbox?

 

[DanOstergren]

Really nice Dan. I really appreciate appreciate you showing before and after and light placements. For someone who hasn't dipped his toe into portraits yet it is really helpful.

Thank you! Not a problem! I feel that many photographers believe that a lot of editing is necessary to get to a certain level of quality in portraiture, so I really wanted to show how little editing was needed to get from point A to point B in this shot.

 

[DanOstergren]

Excellent work! The color tone is wonderful. That boy is going to break a few hearts if he hasn't already.

Thank you! If he's anything like his dad, he's going to make a lucky girl very happy. His family is very loving and loyal.

 

[DanOstergren]

Very nice. I just ordered an impact octa 9 today and really looking forward to using it. Next on list is a ring light. One of my goals this year is to study, work, and improve on portraits.

Thank you. That's my goal every year!

 

[DanOstergren]

Somebody has modeling in their future! Really nice image. Do you think the ring light added anything different in regards to the lighting as opposed to using say a strobe and softbox?

Thank you. His mom started managing him after we did these portraits, and he's already booking paid jobs.

I think the socked ring light has a similar lighting effect of what a diffused beauty dish would produce, especially because I didn't shoot through it, which is usually what photographers do with ring lights. The source of light is round, somewhat direct with high contrast, but also soft because of the diffusing sock.

As opposed to using a strobe, because it was constant light I had to adjust the ISO to be a bit higher than one may normally have it set to for studio work (ISO 640 for this shot). The aperture was also set a bit wider to make up for lack of output power (f/3.5).